women's movement definition

A movement to secure legal, economic, and social equality for women, also called the feminist movement. It has its roots in the nineteenth-century women's movement, which sought, among other things, to secure property rights and suffrage for women. The modern feminist movement, often said to have been galvanized by the publication of Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique, began in the 1960s and advocates equal pay for equal work, improved day care arrangements, and preservation of abortion rights. (SeeEqual Rights Amendment, feminism, and Gloria Steinem.)